James Patterson - I, Alex Cross

"Listen." I handed her two of my business cards. "Call me if you hear anything else, and please give me your number too. As soon as this thing is ready to go, I'll bring you whatever I have. Do we have a deal?"

"That depends." She fanned herself with the cards. "How do I know you're the type to return favors?"

I chose my words carefully. "I'm here talking to you because I need you and I know you've been helpful to Metro before. That also means I can't afford to piss you off. Is that honest enough for you?"

She took out a little gold pen, scribbled some digits, then kissed the card. She handed it back to me with a lipstick imprint next to the number.

"Delicious," she said.

I took the card. "No, you had it right a minute ago – scary."

I WAS SURPRISED to hear from one of Tony Nicholson's attorneys the next afternoon. It wasn't the bow-tie-and-suspenders nerd from the night of the raid, but someone else entirely. This one sounded even more expensive, with a 202 phone number on the ID. The heart of the heart of the capital.

"Detective Cross, my name is Noah Miller. I'm with Kendall and Burke. I believe you're familiar with my client Anthony Nicholson?"

"I've been trying to meet with your client since last week," I told him. "I've left half a dozen messages for Anthony ."

"At Nyth-Klein?" he asked.

"That's right."

"Yes, they represent the LLC and its holdings in Virginia. We've taken over individual representation for Mr. Nicholson – which brings me back to the subject at hand. I want to be very clear that I'm making this call at his request, and that he's choosing to ignore counsel on the matter."

That got my attention. "How soon can I see him?" I asked.

"You can't. That's not why I'm calling. Please listen carefully. What I have for you is a safe-deposit key, if you'd like to come pick it up. Mr. Nicholson says it's important to your investigation. He also believes that the Metro Police are his best chance of staying alive. He doesn't want to deal with the FBI."

I was Googling Kendall and Burke while we spoke. "I've already been to Nicholson's safe-deposit box," I told him, as the firm came up on my screen. Big, reputable one on K Street.

"Yes, I know. This is in the same bank but a different box," he said, and my hands stopped over the keyboard. What would Nicholson have in a second box? More important, how could we protect him? And from whom?

"Can I assume you'll come pick this up today?" Miller continued.

"Definitely, but let me ask you something," I said. "Why Metro? Why me? Why wouldn't Nicholson give this up to the Federal Bureau?"

"Honestly, my client doesn't trust the people who are holding him – or, frankly, the integrity of their investigation. One more thing – he wants to make sure his cooperation doesn't go unnoticed."

I couldn't help a little smile. How weird, to suddenly be on the same side of the fence as Tony Nicholson, ah, Anthony. It sounded like he was getting as paranoid as I was – and maybe for good reason.

"Twenty-twenty K Street, fourth floor?" I asked, printing it off the screen.

"Very good, Detective Cross. Make it between one thirty and two o'clock. I'll be gone after that."

"I'll see you at one thirty," I said, and hung up on Lawyer Miller before he could hang up on me.

IT DIDN'T TAKE long to snag the key from Nicholson's attorney at Kendall and Burke, and not much longer than that to get in and out of the Exeter Bank. It was as if the lawyer, Noah Miller, and the bank manager, Ms. Currie, were competing to see who could get me out of their lives faster. Fine with me.

It turned out that the only thing in the new deposit box was a single, unmarked disk, which was about what I'd expected. I drove straight back to the Daly Building with it and called Sampson on my way. He was already there, so it was no problem to meet as soon as I arrived with the disk.

In fact, the big man was sitting with his feet up, fooling around on a laptop, when I came into my office.

"Did you know Zeus was also called the Cloud Gatherer?" he said. "His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak. Oh, and he was a pederast too. Rumored to be."

"Fascinating," I said. "Get your shoes off my desk and slide this in."

I handed him the disk and closed the door behind me.

"What is it?" Sampson asked.

"Tony Nicholson thinks it's his life insurance."

Seconds later, the video started playing.

Right away, I recognized the bedroom from the carriage barn apartment at Nicholson's club. It looked the same except for some clean sheets on the bed and maybe a few more knickknacks.

A time signature at the bottom of the screen put it at 1:30 a.m. on July 20 of the previous summer.

"Can those signature numbers be faked?" I asked Sampson.

"No doubt. Why? Do you think Nicholson is screwing with you?"

"Maybe. Probably. I don't know yet."

After about thirty seconds, the image hiccupped, and the time jumped ahead to 2:17 a.m.

Now there was a girl on the bed, wearing nothing but black lace panties. She was blond and petite, with black cuffs on her wrists that were strapped to the posts over her head. Her legs were spread open as wide as humanly possible.

There was no sound, but the way she was moving looked more alluring than scared or defensive to me. Still, I had a fierce knot in my stomach. Whatever this was, I didn't think I wanted to see it proceed.

A man walked into the frame – a real creep wearing full S &M garb, with either rubber or latex pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Also heavy boots and a fitted hood that zipped all the way up the back of his head. Other than the fact that he was tall and well muscled, I couldn't tell much more about him.

"He knows the camera's there," Sampson said. "Maybe he wanted this filmed."

"Let's just watch, John."

I couldn't talk much right now. I was already thinking about what had happened to Caroline, possibly in this room, and maybe at the hands of the same creep we were watching.

Zeus, or whoever it was, bent over the girl and placed a black kidney-shaped blindfold over her eyes. "There's a ring," I said. "On his right hand."

It looked like a class ring, but the image quality wasn't good enough to make it out.

He took his time, pulled a few more things out of the dresser, a spreader bar that he cuffed to both of her ankles; a small brown bottle of something, possibly amyl nitrate.

When he waved it under her nose, the blond girl's face went very red. Then her head lolled from side to side.

Sampson and I watched silently as they had sex. Most of the time, the creep kept one hand on the mattress for balance and the other over her throat. It looked like he was performing asphyxophilia to me, controlling the girl's oxygen, giving it and then taking it away.

The girl played along and didn't seem distressed, which was distressing to watch. Then suddenly he arched up off of her, climaxing, I think, and raised his free hand like he'd just won some kind of contest.

All his weight appeared to be on her throat, and suddenly her movements became jerky and desperate. Her legs jutted straight out under him. It was a horrible thing to watch, like it was happening right now, and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

The more the blond girl struggled, the more excited he got, until finally her body went limp and she stopped moving altogether. Only then did he kiss her.

"Oh, Christ," Sampson said under his breath. "What's the matter with the world?"

The killer climbed off the bed after that. There was no lingering, no fetishizing with the body. In less than a minute, he was gone from the private suite.

Twenty seconds later, the video cut out altogether.